Innovation is not just about coming up with new ideas -- we do have a fair number in circulation. Execution can be innovative, we see it all the time.

Yet, many consider innovation sexy and execution... well, it is work isn't it?

I was also thinking about what having a spirit of inquiry means to me. Given my lifelong pursuit of good questions -- mostly why questions -- I thought I would share with you a few nuggets I came across and saved from books and other readings that talk about execution and innovation to inspire us to lead with questions.

+++

1.

“Advocates of knowledge management as the next big thing have advanced the proposition that what companies need is more intellectual capital. While that is undeniably true, it's only partly true. What those advocates are forgetting is that knowledge is only useful if you do something with it.”

-- Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business

2.

“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”

–- Fyodor Dostoevsky

3.

“To find the exact answer, one must first ask the exact question.”

-- S. Tobin Webster

4.

“Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it... It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.”

-- Virginia Woolf

5.

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he or she gets to know something.”

-- Wilson Mizner

6.

“You don't have to spend a jillion dollars on advertising to get your word out. What matters is that customers have a good experience with your product at every single point of contact. We completely obsess over execution. Doing good is good business.”

-- David Neeleman, founder, JetBlue

7.

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

-- Gen. George S. Patton

8.

“It is no use saying, We are doing our best. You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”

-- Winston Churchill

9.

“What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?”

-- Dr. Robert Schuller

10.

“If you are content with the best you have done, you will never do the best you can do.”

-- Martin Vanbee

11.

“A pile of rocks ceases to be a rock pile when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind.”

-- Antoine Saint-Exupery

12.

“The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.”

“We must bear in mind, then, that there is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things in any state. For the innovator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things, whilst those who expect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders. This indifference arises in part from fear of their adversaries who were favoured by the existing laws, and partly from the incredulity of men who have no faith in anything new that is not the result of well-established experience. Hence it is that, whenever the opponents of the new order of things have the opportunity to attack it, they will do it with the zeal of partisans, whilst the others defend it but feebly, so that it is dangerous to rely upon the latter.”

-- Niccolo' Machiavelli

16.

“The silly question is the first intimation of some totally new development.”

-– Alfred North Whitehead

17.

“I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the varieties of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.”

-- Igor Stravinsky

18.

“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem. They're there every night, they see it done every night, they see how it should be done every night, but they can't do it themselves.”

“Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.”

-- Leonardo Da Vinci

20.

“We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we already have done.”

-- Longfellow

21.

“The time to go into a new business is when it's badly run by others.”

-- Sir Richard Branson, founder, Virgin

22.

“The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best result.”

-- Edward de Bono

23.

“Innovation is fostered by information gathered from new connections; from insights gained by journeys into other disciplines or places; from active, collegial networks and fluid, open boundaries. Innovation arises from ongoing circles of exchange, where information is not just accumulated or stored, but created. Knowledge is generated anew from connections that weren't there before.”

-- Margaret J. Wheatley

24.

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered. The point is to discover them.”

-- Galileo Galilei

25.

“The sign of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in your mind and still be able to function.”

“A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”

-- Steve Jobs

29.

“You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.”

-- Wayne Gretzky

30.

“To understand a new idea, break an old habit.”

-- Jean Toomer

31.

“Outsides are where the action is. Think walls, borders, ceilings, membranes, crusts, skins, and doors. Surfaces are where the rubber meets the road. Edges are a lot more than frills. Surfaces are where things make contact, including land, sea and sky. Surfaces also tell stories. Horizons are the surfaces of what we see.”

-- K.C. Cole

32.

“Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow.”

-- T. S. Eliot

33.

“Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”

-- Seneca

34.

“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.”

-- Picasso

35.

“Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

-- Goethe

36.

“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies; for the hardest victory is victory over self.”

-- Aristotle

37.

“One of the basics of a good system of innovation is diversity. In some ways, the stronger the culture (national, institutional, generational, or other), the less likely it is to harbor innovative thinking. Common and deep-seated beliefs, widespread norms, and behavior and performance standards are enemies of new ideas. Any society that prides itself on being harmonious and homogeneous is very unlikely to catalyze idiosyncratic thinking. Suppression of innovation need not be overt. It can be simply a matter of people's walking around in tacit agreement and full comfort with the status quo.”

-- Nicholas Negroponte

38.

“Everything you see and touch was once an invisible idea until someone chose to bring it into being. Any powerful idea is absolutely fascinating and absolutely useless until we choose to use it.”

-- Richard Bach

39.

“Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.”

-- Marston Bates

40.

“The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition.”

-- Dwight Morrow

41.

“Inspiration is a guest who does not like to visit lazy people.”

-- Tchaikowsky

42.

“Begin and you're halfway there.”

-- Alfred A. Montapert

43.

“Alan Kay's famous aphorism is that perspective is worth 80 IQ points. An innovative insight is not the product of an individual's brilliance. It's not as if innovators' heads are wired in different ways. Innovation typically comes from looking at the world through a slightly different lens.”

A couple of years back I participated in a three-day experience with a psychologist trained in deconstructing and helping re-construct group dynamics who teaches at Wharton.

With me were a diverse group of eleven peers anywhere from business development to creative direction, client services, analytics, project management, user experience design, and content strategy.

The experience made a strong impression on me and created a bond that only deep neglect and indifference will be able to sever.

I felt the most beneficial aspects of the experience were the awakening of self-awareness, curiosity, desire for clarity, and motivation around collaboration that were rewarded to us when we acknowledged our differences, motivations, and fight/flight instincts while we got past judgement, fear of uncertainty, and the need to document roles and understand social status.

I now have a more robust appreciation for organizational dynamics, one that complements nicely past work on team development. Respect, responsibility, and integrity are the key ingredients to doing the best work collaboratively, not politically charged consensus.

In my work with firms I provide guideposts, anchor points in the ephemeral currents of social, helping businesses understand what is bedrock and what is sand. Making coherent choices about what guides an approach taking into consideration emotions, and how moods and habits can trip us up is especially important in social.

And social is a strategic business driver, a horizontal competence in meaningful brands. The focus of the people who serve those businesses is making better decisions.

How to make Smart Decisions

In Eyes Wide Open, Noreena Hertz, Associate Director for the Centre for International Business at the University of Cambridge, tackles the topic.

She reveals the extent to which the biggest decisions in our lives are often made on the basis of flawed information, weak assumptions, corrupted data, insufficient scrutiny of others, and a lack of self-knowledge.

The world can be confusing, and the role of culture such as in peer pressure, be a good girl, we don't talk about these things in public, he's the expert, better put on a brave face, etc. stunts our natural curiosity. Our desire to please overwhelms our need to filter and understand.

Because of globalization, mobility, and digital habits, culture is becoming more homogeneous. Humans are inherently social and survival creates a strong incentive to fit in, especially in times of economic (or worse) stress.

Both documenting scientific research and providing real world examples, Hertz argues in favor of averting disasters by making the case for becoming empowered decision-makers, capable of making high-stakes choices and holding accountable those who advise us.

I like the premise of the book and the practical thought starters. Also, I found this independent assessment in The Guardian# helpful in providing strong counter points. In the same way doctors practice medicine, wise decision-making takes practice.

Becoming more confident at decision-making starts with recognizing the nature of the challenge, and asking better questions.

In On Writing. A Memoir of the Craft Stephen King says “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”

We may not want to become full time writers, however more and more of our work product relies on the ability to write well.

I have a secret reserve of good writers I turn to for inspiration. When I get stuck and what used to come easy and flow right out of me and onto the screen takes hours of effort to squeeze into something that makes sense, I use one of several strategies to get unstuck.

Four ideas for writing more, and better

1 -- read better, and more

A dip in creativity is a leading indicator that we are not reading enough of the right things -- books, preferably in paper format and in a quiet place with no distractions. Fiction writing is preferable.

2 -- put pen to paper

We do most of our writing using a keyboard, and while that is convenient, it deprives us of the sensory experience of actually putting skin in the game. We build a certain distance between our thoughts and our expression when we mediate the process via a keyboard and screen. The sensory input and output are not the same.

[...] psychologists and neuroscientists say it is far too soon to declare handwriting a relic of the past. New evidence suggests that the links between handwriting and broader educational development run deep.

Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. In other words, it’s not just what we write that matters — but how.

It turns out that being able to decipher messiness and variance in our own output greatly enhances our ability to connect information and learn.

We retain information better when we hand write on a pad. On a spectrum from most to least remembered, we retain more of what we create physically when we add manual ability.

3 -- write more frequently without worrying about quality

Wanting to achieve perfection is the enemy of done. We fall into that trap when we place more pressure on ourselves to deliver something we consider finished. It is counter intuitive, yet the more we polish, the less frequently we tend to write.

When we work iteratively, starting with completing a first draft we end up with a better final product.

4 -- write about the very thing that bothers you

The best way to get over a challenge is to work through it; writing about being stuck eventually leads to some form of understanding or at least awareness of what is going on/what bothers or blocks you.

It works.

Keeping good company with inspiration

Since resistance to the convenience of new tools is futile, especially due to having only so much time in a day, I manage my reading habits carefully by selecting sites and blogs that deliver beyond information and news.

My go-to resources for inspiration have one thing in common: they are good storytellers and pros who share the trials and tribulations of their trade themselves.

Steven Pressfield talks about working on chaos# -- a condition or state in which many of us seem to live anymore -- and starting from anywhere#. Some of his thoughts:

working in the cracks

only think big

refuse to work in sequence (I also found not reading in sequence useful)

chaos can be healthy (by upsetting our normal course, it opens a new way)

chaos is what we have (and yes, some weeks we can deal with it better than others)

showing up is sometimes more important that having it all figured out

Ann Handley has a magnificent way with stories, and recently wrote about 14 stages of writing a book or finishing a big project# that sounds a lot like what it feels when working on an important client deliverable or presentation.

You see the end of it, feel happy and sapped at the same time. The best ways to describe this part are the two steps on the list under:

bargaining -- when you trade with yourself to stay motivated

consciousness -- when you do realize you still need to sell the project/talk, etc.

First, you need to learn how to prepare to be creative, says Tharp. It’s about much more than quality of presentation, it’s about being able to bridge between what you see in your mind and what you present to the world — skill is how you build that bridge.

Stephen King says:

“Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.”

One thing Nicolas Tesla, Richard Branson,Tony Stark, and all great titans of industry have in common is this: they were able to identify rules that don’t exist and had the courage to break them, says Jason Kotecki in Penguins Can't Fly: +39 Other Rules That Don't Exist:

History is filled with examples of those who profited greatly by dispensing with so-called “rules”:

@browniewise: House parties are no place for selling. #tupperware #notarule

@stevejobs: Computers shalt be beige. #notarule

@netflix: Thou must charge late fees in order to get customers to return movies. #notarule

@rockybalboa: Thou shalt not train for a boxing match by punching meat. #notarule

We don't do things the way we've always done them, and we appreciate -- at least intellectually -- how perpetuating the status quo is no longer the best option:

Although the status quo may feel safe, it’s the most dangerous place to be. In a landscape changing faster than ever, rule breaking is a requirement. The ones who keep doing things the way they’ve always done them are in for a rude awakening, and possibly early extinction.

Going against the grain can be a scary proposition. Fear of scorn, or worse failure can keep us from breaking the rules or bringing to life entirely new experiences. Kotecki suggests there are seven rules we should break:

Your boss, banker, or board of directors may not get your vision when you tell it to them. Try showing them instead.

2. Not having too much fun at work

We are in a war against Adultitis. Especially at work. Putting googly eyes on inanimate objects, decorating your cube for Halloween, and making cupcakes for coworkers are some of the weapons we have on our side. Too bad some people prefer keeping them locked away.

[...] Burnout can be easily resolved. But it requires leaders who see power in bringing fun to the workplace and are smart enough to understand that having a little fun in no way diminishes the seriousness in which one takes his or her responsibility.

3. Only doing things at scale

I remember when I was first starting out, I tried to do everything I could to appear bigger than I was. As I yearned for credibility, I was downplaying some of my best advantages, the very ones ginormous companies would die for. Namely, the ability to listen, be nimble, and do things that don’t scale. Like sending handwritten thank you notes to every single customer. No, this isn’t scalable when you have hundreds of thousands of customers. But it’s just the thing that can energize a group of early adopters, the very people who will tell you what about your product or service works and what doesn’t, and will sing your praises to everyone they know.

4. Determining a thing’s importance by how easily it can be measured

[...] who can accurately measure how profoundly a soul has been moved? Or the precise generational impact of a tool that empowers an individual to lift themselves out of poverty? It’s much easier to calculate the things that are easily measured—like last quarter’s profits—and assume everything else takes care of itself. At best, this technique only provides part of the story. At worst, it can lead us down some bad roads.

The answers to questions like “how many contracts did we sign?,” “how many locations are we in?,” and “how much did we spend on advertising?” are easily calculated. Many of us spend the majority of our time monitoring those stats while assuming that our efforts spent to improve them will result in a corresponding uptick in the quality of our story.

5. Letting others define your success

As the old adage goes, be careful that you don’t spend your life climbing the ladder of success only to find, once you reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. In order to avoid this, the first step is to figure out what game you want to play. Step two: play that game as well as you can. Step three: don’t be distracted by people playing a different game.

6. Being realistic

If a dream is realistic, it’s not really a dream. It’s a to-do. If you’re going to dream, you might as well dream big. And if you’re ever accused of dreaming too big, then you can rest assured that you’re on the right track. Just pretend you’re a long lost member of the Wright clan. Don’t be realistic. And be very, very cautious about what you label as “impossible.”

7. Not letting your princess dress get wet

Our “princess dress” is the carefully-curated version of ourself that we show off to others. It’s the way we look, speak, and act. It’s our degree and our job title, our home and hairstyle, our cars, clothes, and 401ks, all wrapped into one pretty package and tied with a bow that signifies that we are responsible, sophisticated, and successful. In order to keep this princess dress looking good, we must live a life of restraint.

[...] We are given countless opportunities to dive headfirst in to the experience of life, but we are too afraid to mess up our hair, our clothes, or our reputation. Because running through puddles, making a mess, or doing something silly for the sheer sake of fun sullies the dress we’ve worked so hard to preserve.

Kotecki lists some methods we can use to get better at spotting the rules:

1. Start a practice project like a personal journal, with the challenge of listing one #notarule each day

2. Take advantage of newbies like new hires, or employees who’ve been recently promoted to a new position or department and are not yet indoctrinated to the ways we do things here

3. Who are your heroes in business and life? If they experienced any measure of success, you can bet they broke at least a few rules that didn’t exist. Analyze what they were and see if there are any lessons you can learn

For Esquire magazine Bill Murray talks about inaccessibility, the importance of freedom, commitment, and fatherhood.

With so much semi-processed content in the name of media consumption, Murray's choice of living an engaged life by saying “no” to certain superficial things -- like unfiltered access -- and saying yes to deeper ones -- like commitment to his craft -- is remarkable.

His is a good example of being present and showing respect through work.

On choices:

“I think we're all sort of imprisoned by — or at least bound to — the choices we make, and I think everyone in the acting business wants to make the right choices. You want to say no at the right time and you want to say yes more sparingly.”

On relationships:

“People confuse friendship and relaxation. It's incredibly important to be relaxed — you don't have a chance if you're not relaxed. So I try very hard to relax any kind of tension. But friendship is different.”

On doing:

“Everything happens for a reason” is a kind of self-hypnosis.

[...] It's part of the plan, but if no one acts in the moment of possibility, then it devolves into “Well, then I got hit by a car. Because I was standing in the middle of the road. Well, everything happens for a reason.”

In Bossypants, a book containing advice on how to be a good boss and leader, Tina Fey takes an honest look at how women treat each other, being a working mom, and dealing with institutionalized sexism.

Fey's prayer for her daughter in the book is funny and filled with food for thought:

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect herWhen crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

We perform much better in stressful situations when we enter what is called a challenge response. Instead of panic or recklessness, our brains maximize focus so that we perform at our best:

[...] the brain and the body actually has another way of responding to these kind of high-stakes challenges, you know, whether it’s an important negotiation or you have to give a speech or an athletic competition. Those moments where you really want to show up and do your best. And that other way of responding to stress is called a challenge response. That it’s a way for your brain and body to give you maximum focus, attention, and energy. And it’s physically different than the sort of the fight-or-flight response that we have when we feel- deeply threatened by a stressful situation. When you have a threat response, you know, your body and brain are shifting into the state that is really sort of the classic association with the harmful stress response.

Researchers have become interested in understanding the challenge response:

When you have a challenge response, the brain and body actually sift into a state that gives you more access to your resources. You know your heart might still be pounding, but your blood vessels are going to relax and open up so you get more blood flow to your muscles and to your brain. Your brain shifts into a state — it’s actually better at paying attention to everything in your environment rather than sort of being laser-focused like you might be in a fight-or-flight response on what’s going wrong or what’s dangerous. When you have a challenge response, all of your senses open to all the information that’s available to you, which means that you’re basically smarter under stress.

When we acknowledge our own stress and accept how we feel, we have the ability to shift from viewing stress as a threat to leveraging it as a prompt to refocus on our resourcefulness and meet the challenges that produced it head on:

[...] that is exactly what participants were told in a study conducted at Harvard University. Before they went through the social stress test, they were taught to rethink their stress response as helpful. That pounding heart is preparing you for action. If you're breathing faster, it's no problem. It's getting more oxygen to your brain. And participants who learned to view the stress response as helpful for their performance, well, they were less stressed out, less anxious, more confident, but the most fascinating finding to me was how their physical stress response changed. Now, in a typical stress response, your heart rate goes up, and your blood vessels constrict like this. And this is one of the reasons that chronic stress is sometimes associated with cardiovascular disease. It's not really healthy to be in this state all the time. But in the study, when participants viewed their stress response as helpful, their blood vessels stayed relaxed like this. Their heart was still pounding, but this is a much healthier cardiovascular profile. It actually looks a lot like what happens in moments of joy and courage.

This quote is from an enjoyable collection of essays K.C. Cole wrote for the Los Angeles Times and collected in a book through loosely joined threads.

Themes include uncertainty, the limitations of measure, fragility, illusion, humility before nature, complacency. I've been long interested in the intersection points between biology and humanism, with the modern equivalent in technology and business.

In one of the essays, Cole expands on the theme of complacency by drawing on biology:

The only way to stay in place in the universe is to keep moving. You are always in movement relative to something, whether you can sense it or not. Equilibrium is always dynamic.

Many of the most productive conversations lead to an understanding of sorts. In some cases they allow you to connect with one another in a way that leads to solving a problem, advancing a project, and creating opportunity for a next step or action.

I liken this kind of conversation to a negotiation where both or multiple parties participate to varying degrees. Where people are involved, outcomes tend to be fairly unpredictable, and that is a good thing.

If we could boil down the dynamics of relationships to a specific and neat formula, we would cut ourselves out of the myriad possibilities that exist for new creation. In fact, while ideas may sound similar at the moment of conception, the sweet spot is in the combinations and permutations we find for practical executions.

Learning how to approach conversation as a negotiation can benefit individuals and organizations. The more content we create for public consumption, the more our digital imprint and what others experience of us are available for review.

When we talk about conversation, we use terms like listening, engaging, and sharing -- all principles of good communication. Conversations are charged with emotion and the action does not stop when they are over. The emotion generated before, during and after an exchange creates the momentum for what's next.

We buy, we join, and we connect on the basis of emotion

As a way of justifying to ourselves and others our actions, we rationalize how we got there. This is the correct order in which events occur. See if this statement resonates with you:

“Perhaps the most powerful way to soothe someone's emotions is to appreciate their concerns. There are three elements in appreciating someone. You want to understand the other's point of view; find merit in what they are thinking, feeling, or doing; and communicate the merit you see.”

“Perhaps the most powerful way to soothe someone's emotions is to appreciate their concerns. There are three elements in appreciating someone. You want to understand the other's point of view; find merit in what they are thinking, feeling, or doing; and communicate the merit you see.”

The model Fisher and Shapiro employ as a framework in Beyond Reason can be very useful to us as we learn to negotiate the speed and frequency of conversations in the social media. We can also learn to be more effective in addressing context for business conversations.

There are five main or core concerns to all human beings that you need to be aware of to become more effective in negotiations:

(1) Appreciation

How can you understand the point of view of the other? Find merit in what they feel and do? And communicate your understanding through words and actions? In conversations, the tone and mood come across -- are you listening for them? Yes, even in 140 characters, even when it is unintended. Look to find the meta messages, which are the indications of whether a person is being supportive, ambivalent or resistant to the ideas being discussed.

This works in communications even when we are talking about marketing conversations. Appreciation of the context and dynamics is a good start. When you're attuned to the other and are willing to see and appreciate their point of view the time and effort you invest likely provide a richer return.

(2) Affiliation

What can you do to build structural connections as colleagues? Think about many of the peer to peer relations we engage in when participating in social networks. How do we build personal connections as confidantes? What happens when adversarial assumptions dominate our thinking? Also, the best way to meet a person is face-to-face, although I have found in some rare instances that even that may not work out.

(3) Autonomy

Everyone wants freedom to affect and make decisions. Whenever possible consulting everyone on the team about their view and recommendations helps create stronger bonds.

In some circumstances the desire for autonomy comes across as wanting to be a star. They are not one and the same and they should not be confused. Individuals want to be heard, to express themselves, see their vision and thinking in action. Respect the autonomy of your customers as well. Tom Fishburne inspired me with the fishbowl. Everyone can be a voice in the narrative.

(4) Status

Or acknowledging everyone's areas of particular status, including your own. When it comes to expertise in substantive issues, recognize expertise. One of the most disappointing part of negotiation occur because of the inability to take this step. We cannot be all experts at everything.

Interestingly, while free agency was a way to express one's status just a few short years ago, we are now seeing the emergence of combinations -- day job and a night passion. Digital tools and technologies are opening new avenues at a much lower financial cost. Slash careers are starting to be recognized within the corporate walls as well.

(5) Role

You can choose a fulfilling role in negotiation and select the activities that go with it. A fulfilling role because has a clear purpose and it is personally meaningful. It incorporates your skills, interests, values, and beliefs and channels them into the task at hand. How can you make meaning of a situation?

The trap we all fall into is that we play a role in response to someone else also playing a role. Instead, we can step into a temporary role -- that of the listener, arguer, problem solver, adviser, advocate, collaborator, learner, brainstormer, facilitator, guest, option generator, mentor, colleague, etc. This calls for an expansion of roles to model different behaviors.

Assumptions about roles also undermine our ability to try out temporary jobs and expand our skills into new areas. We should learn to challenge assumptions and look for second answers.

Conversations as tools

Conversations are opportunities to both listen and learn and to be heard. It is quite common that we find ourselves negotiating positions and encountering strong emotions in the process. The first step on the road to connection is the availability to both awareness and understanding of your self and the other.

Where we are in the process, what we bring to the table and occasion, and what we hope to take away depend on us being open to the experience. This is a departure, not a destination or a conclusion.

Stories are data with a soul, says Dr Brené Brown. Next time you need to choose how to express what you feel for someone, you might want to reach out for empathy. In this RSA animate short, Brown says empathy fuels connection, while sympathy drives disconnection.

Our brains are wired to run from pain—including emotional pain—whether it is ours or someone else's. In the video, Brown says empathy rarely starts with the words, “At least...” and oftentimes, the best response is, “I don't know what to say, but I am really glad you told me.”

Often we rush to try and fix a problem for a loved one, yet that is not our job or even within our ability to do. Instead, we should offer a listening, caring ear. This is something most of us can do. And when we feel heard, cared for, and understood, we also feel loved, accepted, that we belong.

1.) To be able to see the world as others see it—this requires putting our stuff aside to see the situation through the eyes of a loved one

2.) To be nonjudgmental—judgement of another person's situation discounts the experience and is an attempt to protect ourselves from the pain of the situation

3.)To understand another person’s feelings—we need to be in touch with our personal feelings in order to understand someone else's. This also requires putting aside "us" to focus on our loved one

4.) To communicate our understanding of that person’s feelings—rather than saying, “At least...” or “It could be worse...” try, “I've been there, and that really hurts,” or (to quote an example from Brown) “It sounds like you are in a hard place now. Tell me more about it.”

Conversation Agent

Conversation Agent focuses on business, technology, digital culture, and customer psychology. At Conversation Agent LLC, I help organizations and brands that want to build better customer experiences tell a new story.